The American Public School Teacher: Past, Present, and Future

Darrel Drury oversees the National Education Association's Surveys and Data Analysis Group, Higher Education Research Center, and Center for the Study of Education Support Professionals. He formerly served as a faculty member and research scientist at Yale University, where he conducted a broad range of studies focusing on the effective organization and management of public education systems. More recently he held positions as director of Policy and Evaluation Research at Metrica, Inc.; director of Policy Research at the National School Boards Association; and vice president for Research and Evaluation at New American Schools. Drury has published extensively, much of his work aimed at providing research-based guidance to policy makers seeking to improve America's public schools. He is the author or coauthor of several major works, including School-Based Management: The Changing Locus of Control in American Public Education (1994), Learning to Hope (1995), Reinventing School-Based Management (1999), Exploring New Directions (2000), Charting a New Course: Fact and Fiction About Charter Schools (2000), Building Capacity: Professional Development for New and Experienced Teachers (2002), and Evaluating Success (2002). In addition, he is the author of numerous journal articles, book chapters, and policy briefs. Drury, a former Fulbright Scholar, received his BA with honors from Vanderbilt University and earned his MA and PhD in sociology from Brown University. He also attended Københavns Universitet (Copenhagen, Denmark) and La Ciudad Universitaria (Madrid, Spain) and completed postdoctoral training in psychosocial epidemiology and advanced epidemiological methods at Yale Medical School. Justin Baer is a senior research analyst at the National Education Association (NEA). His work focuses on helping the NEA's affiliates understand the conceptual and technical underpinnings of new models of teacher compensation and identifying and disentangling the range of factors associated with chronically underperforming schools. Prior to joining the NEA, Baer directed and collaborated on a variety of large-scale surveys, assessments, and program evaluations at the American Institutes for Research, including the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, the National Survey of America's College Students, and the National Assessment of Adult Literacy. He earned his doctorate in sociology from the University of Washington.